Lady Susan’s dark eyes twinkled.
“All the same, I don’t fancy Brett will allow a little prejudice like that to stand in his way. If I know my nephew—and I think I do—he won’t meekly accept his congé and run away and play like a good little boy.”
“Oh, I think he quite understands,” replied Ann a trifle breathlessly.
Lady Susan shook her head.
“My dear,” she said, “Brett is delightful, and I’m ridiculously fond of him. But I’m bound to admit that he hasn’t any principles whatever. And he never understands anything he doesn’t want to.”
CHAPTER XXI THE RETURN
The October sunshine slanted across Berrier Cove, flinging a broad ribbon of light athwart the water and over the wet, shining sands left bare by the outgoing tide. Its furthermost point reached almost to Ann’s feet, where she sat in a crook of the rocks, resting after a five-mile tramp along the shore before she tackled the steep climb up to the Cottage.
The sea was wonderfully calm to-day—placid and tranquil as some inland lake, and edged with baby wavelets which came creeping tentatively upward to curl over on the sand like a fringe of downy feathers. Ann could not help vividly recalling the day when she had so nearly lost her life at that very spot. It seemed incredible that this quiet sea, with its gentle, crooning voice no louder than a rhythmic whisper, could be one and the same with the turbulent, thunderous monster which had almost beaten the breath out of her body.